Hitler

by Volker Ullrich

  For the National Socialists, the 6 November election was a catastrophe. The party lost 2 million voters, and their overall share of the vote declined by 4.2 per cent to 33.1 per cent. They only picked up 196 parliamentary seats, a decrease of 34. Along with the DNVP, the big winners of the election were the KPD, who increased their share of the vote from 14.5 to 16.9 per cent and took 100 seats in the Reichstag. The SPD and the two Catholic parties suffered small declines in support: the SPD dropped from 21.6 to 20.4 per cent, the Centre from 12.5 to 11.9 per cent and the BVP from 3.2 to 3.1 per cent. The DVP did slightly better, rising from 1.2 to 1.9 per cent, and the German State Party held steady at 1 per cent. Overall turnout declined by almost 4 per cent compared with July, falling to 80.6 per cent—which probably hurt the NSDAP more than any other party.213 The major liberal papers in Berlin depicted the election as a sensation. “The National Socialist idea has lost its power to win people over,” wrote the Vossische Zeitung. “The aura is gone…the magic has failed. The faith is flagging…Hitler’s failure as a politician and a statesman has become apparent.”214 Goebbels, who had hoped a few days before the vote that the result would not be “all that bad,” also had to admit: “We suffered a heavy defeat…We now face some difficult struggles.”215

  For Hitler personally, 6 November represented a third painful defeat within the year 1932. His charismatic aura, which was based on his magnetic effect on the masses and their belief in him as a political messiah, was coming under fire. Hitler of course did his best to put a positive spin on the results in his post-election speech. The “massive attack on the Nazi Party” had been repelled, he claimed, and the Papen government had suffered a “debilitating defeat” since the DNVP, which supported the status quo, had been unable to break the 10-per-cent mark. The message for National Socialists, Hitler said, was “to continue the fight against this regime until it has been ultimately eradicated.”216 But he was unable to lift the NSDAP out of the deep depression that had set in throughout the party.217 For the first time, there were considerable doubts about Hitler’s political judgement. Did not the Nazi strategy of all-or-nothing condemn the party to eternal opposition, many Hitler followers asked? Would the next election bring an even worse defeat? Hitler seems to have been utterly unmoved by such concerns. After a long meeting with Hitler on 9 November, Goebbels noted: “No reconciliation. Hold steady! Papen must go. There can be no compromises. The reactionaries will be left scratching their heads. We don’t do things by halves.”218

  Papen had every reason to be happy with the election result, which meant that the NSDAP and the Centre Party no longer had a parliamentary majority and Hitler could no longer threaten him with a “black and brown” coalition. Papen thus believed he would be greeted more receptively on 13 November when he issued a written invitation for Hitler to join his cabinet along the lines of what he had proposed in August. The 6 November election, Papen wrote, had created “a new situation” and a “new possibility to concentrate all [of Germany’s] nationalist forces.” The bitterness of the election, Papen suggested, should be forgotten in order to jointly serve “the welfare of the country.”219 The Nazi Party leadership suspected that this was yet another attempt to lure Hitler into a trap. “No repeat of 13 August—that would be a catastrophe,” Goebbels noted in his diary, leaving no doubt as to what the main obstacle was. “Hitler must be Reich chancellor! Conditio sine qua non.”220

  Hitler took three days before refusing Papen’s request to discuss the possibility of National Socialist participation in the government. He was at most prepared to engage in a written exchange of ideas. “Under no circumstances,” Hitler wrote in his reply to Papen, “will I tolerate a repeat of the proceedings of 13 August.”221 In a cabinet meeting on 17 November Papen admitted that his efforts to ally Germany’s nationalist parties had failed. Papen dissolved the cabinet “in order to clear the way…for the Reich president to open negotiations with the leaders of the political parties.”222 Hindenburg accepted Papen’s resignation but asked him to continue to temporarily administer the government’s business.

  Harry Kessler celebrated the news of Papen’s resignation: “Finally! This perpetually smiling, foolhardy dilettante has done more damage in six months than any of his predecessors in a comparable period.”223 The socialist newspaper Vorwärts reported the news under the headline: “Cabinet of lords deposed!”224 People in Social Democratic circles remembered all too well that Papen had been the one who had destroyed the last bulwark of the Weimar Republic with his 20 July coup d’état against Prussia. Yet it was entirely unclear who would succeed Papen as chancellor or whether a way out of the political crisis could be found. The only thing that was clear, Kessler noted on 19 November, was the absolute impenetrability and uncertainty of the situation: “Everything more or less depends on chance and the good or bad moods of four or five individuals.”225

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  On 18 November, Hindenburg commenced negotiations with party leaders. His goal remained to form a “cabinet of national concentration,” ranging from the Centre Party to the National Socialists. The first man he received was Alfred Hugenberg, who came out in favour of continuing rule by presidential decree and against making Hitler chancellor. He had been “unable to discover much respect for agreements in Hitler,” Hugenberg said.226 DVP Chairman Eduard Dingeldey also warned against Hitler, calling him “an unpredictable person easily subject to outside influences.” No one, Dingeldey argued, could rule out Hitler “trying to seize power even against the will of the Reich president.”227 The chairman of the Centre Party, Ludwig Kaas, was more moderate in his views, as was the leader of the BVP, Fritz Schäffer. Both argued that the National Socialists should be part of the new government. But both declined to offer suggestions about who should be Reich chancellor, saying that was a matter for Hindenburg alone. Schäffer even contended that the danger resided “less in Hitler himself than in the people surrounding him,” since they were obsessed with the idea of a “single-party dictatorship.” For that reason, any Hitler-led government would have to include “counterweights and strong personalities” in order to prevent abuses of power.228

  Hitler was invited by telephone to a personal audience with Hindenburg at 11:30 a.m. on 19 November. The day before that, he flew with Wilhelm Frick and Gregor Strasser to Berlin. Goebbels advised him to treat Hindenburg like a father: “Cajole him in the most primitive fashion and try to gain his trust.” The Nazi leaders sat together until late at night. “We ate, laughed, chatted and made some music,” Goebbels noted in his diary. “Hitler was very relaxed…God willing, may everything turn out well.”229 As they had on 13 August, Nazi supporters congregated on Wilhelmstrasse, cheering Hitler on as he arrived for his appointment with Hindenburg. It was the third time he had met with the Reich president, but the first in which he had insisted on a private discussion. Only during the second half of their meeting, which lasted more than an hour, was State Secretary Meissner allowed to join the two men. Once again, Hindenburg appealed to Hitler as the “leader of a large movement,” whose nationalist sentiment he respected, not to rule out the invitation to be part of a nationalist government. “The times are too serious for everyone to follow his own personal interests and go his own way,” Hindenburg argued according to Meissner’s minutes. “We have to put our differences behind us and come together in an emergency community.” Hitler stuck to his guns, telling Hindenburg he would only join a governing cabinet if he received “political leadership,” that is the office of chancellor. He did, however, signal willingness to compromise on the further composition of such a cabinet. By no means, he assured Hindenburg, did he want to fill the remaining ministerial posts exclusively with National Socialists. When Hindenburg asked him if he was willing to initiate discussions with other parties about the policies of a potential coalition, Hitler responded that the Reich president first needed to call upon him to form a government. At this point, Hitler suggested an idea to which he presumed Hindenburg would be receptive: “I think I coul
d find a basis upon which I and the new government would receive an enabling law from the Reichstag.” The possibility of ruling by virtual decree via an enabling law was a legal option in times of crisis—albeit one that required a two-thirds parliamentary majority. Stresemann had already used such a law during the crisis of October 1923. An enabling law had the advantage of allowing the government to act independently of the institutions of the Reichstag for a time without constantly having to approach the Reich president for emergency decrees. Hindenburg said that he would think over Hitler’s suggestion and then speak to him again.230

  The most important result to come out of 19 November was that after his one-to-one meeting, Hindenburg seemed no longer categorically opposed to Hitler’s chancellorship. Nonetheless, Hitler’s entourage was uncertain as to whether this was really a “serious attempt to come together” or another attempt by the other side to “screw us,” as Goebbels coarsely put it.231 That issue was resolved on 21 November, when Hindenburg received Hitler a second time and charged him with forming a government—but only under the condition that he create “a stable working majority with a set, unified agenda in the Reichstag.” That would only be possible if Hitler secured the support of the Centre Party as well as the DNVP, and for Hitler, Hugenberg’s party was clearly a lost cause. Otto Meissner had informed Hitler about Hindenburg’s intentions in advance, allowing him to respond with a carefully prepared letter he now presented to the Reich president. In it, Hitler demanded that he be given “the authority that all previous bearers of Your Excellency’s presidential power have possessed”—i.e. the comprehensive powers of a chancellor of a presidential cabinet enjoyed by Brüning and Papen. Hindenburg was by no means prepared to accede to this demand. With that, negotiations had broken down to all intents and purposes, even if Hindenburg assured Hitler: “You will always find my door open.”232

  Hitler’s meetings with Hindenburg led to a correspondence between Hitler and Meissner that once more laid out the fundamental difference between a presidential cabinet and a parliamentary government based on a majority in the Reichstag.233 On 23 November, Hitler officially renounced Hindenburg’s mandate to negotiate with other parties to form a parliamentary majority as “impossible to fulfil for internal reasons.” One day later, in a letter from Meissner, Hindenburg officially refused Hitler’s request to be charged with the leadership of a presidential cabinet. Hindenburg’s justification essentially repeated the arguments of 13 August. The Reich president felt unable to take responsibility for entrusting his “comprehensive presidential powers to the leader of a party that had always stressed its desire to rule exclusively and that was negatively inclined towards the measures which [Hindenburg] himself personally favoured and judged politically and economically necessary.” Under such circumstances, the letter read, there was reason to fear that a Hitler-led presidential government “would inevitably become a single-party dictatorship exacerbating the tensions within the German people in a way incompatible with [Hindenburg’s] oath of office and conscience.”234 Having already exchanged opinions with Meissner, Hitler expected his request to be refused and reacted calmly. “The old man doesn’t trust him, and the feeling is mutual,” Goebbels noted. “The farce is over. Papen will be back no doubt…The barons have won again. But for how long?”235

  Hindenburg did not change his mind even when a small group of industrialists, bankers and agricultural producers submitted a petition on 19 November calling upon the president to give the “leader of the largest nationalist group”—i.e. Hitler—“responsible directorship” of a presidential cabinet.236 The initiator of this action was Wilhelm Keppler, a middle-class entrepreneur, whom Hitler had made an economic adviser in the spring of 1932. At the behest of Hjalmar Schacht, a department named after Keppler was set up to “harmonise the National Socialist economic policies…with the flourishing of the private sector.”237 But the petition had not attracted nearly the amount of support from the business sector as its initiators expected. It contained only nineteen signatures, a little fewer than half of whom came from the so-called “Keppler Circle”: Schacht, bankers Kurt von Schröder (the owner of the Stein bank in Cologne) and Friedrich Reinhart (a Commerzbank board member), the industrialist August Rosterg and Ilseder Steelworks supervisory board member Ewald Hecker. Hamburg merchant circles were prominently represented with four signatories: Emil Helfferich, Franz Witthoeft, Carl Vincent Krogmann (later mayor of Hamburg under the Nazis) and Kurt Woermann. Five signatories were large-scale agriculturalists—they were led by the president of the Reichslandbund, Count Eberhard von Kalckreuth. The Ruhrlade—an organisation representing the interests of the Ruhr Valley’s twelve leading industrialists—provided only one signatory, Fritz Thyssen, a long-time Hitler admirer.238 Schacht had already informed Hitler on 12 November that most representatives of heavy industry—in keeping with the ponderousness of that designation—were not going to take part in the petition.239 The director of the United Steelworks, Albert Vögler, told Schröder on 21 November that he, Gutehoffnungshütte Supervisory Board Chairman Paul Reusch and Hoesch General Director Fritz Springorum agreed with the petition’s “solution to the current crisis” but had declined to sign it because they “always avoided taking any sort of political position.”240 This suggests a change of mood in Hitler’s favour that was probably influenced by the electoral gains of the KPD in the November election and the renewed fears among business leaders that Germany could be “Bolshevised.” Still, the majority of industrialists stuck by Papen as their preferred choice for chancellor. That being the case, the petition was hardly going to sway Hindenburg. The greatest impression was probably made by the fact that it had been signed by Kalckreuth, since the lobbyists for the large landowners east of the Elbe had usually regarded Hindenburg as their advocate. In January 1933, their influence would prove particularly fateful.

  After the attempt to form a “cabinet of national concentration” including the Nazis had failed, Hindenburg had no option other than to appoint either Papen or another one of his intimates chancellor. And aside from Papen, the only other option was Schleicher, the éminence grise of the presidential government. On 23 November, the general and Reich defence minister had already sounded out Hitler as to whether he would support a cabinet headed by him. Hitler answered in the negative and stressed that he would not allow any of his people to join such a cabinet. Given the circumstances, Schleicher said at a ministerial conference on 25 November, there “was nothing to be gained by a change of chancellor.”241 In fact, however, Schleicher had already decided to jettison Papen since, contrary to expectations, his protégé had proved to be anything but a passive puppet and had long since emancipated himself politically. Papen’s greatest capital was the trust he had built up with Hindenburg during the five months of his chancellorship, which Papen now sought to cash in against Schleicher. On 26 November, Hindenburg refused to honour Papen’s request not to be charged with forming a new government. “It broke his heart,” Hindenburg wrote, that Papen too now wanted to abandon him.242 Schleicher assumed responsibility for negotiating with the leaders of the political parties to get them to tolerate a Papen cabinet. But the sly general in fact used the meetings to test out the possibilities of becoming chancellor himself.243

  The NSDAP leadership waited to see how “the Papen–Schleicher wrestling match” would turn out,244 and Hitler studiously remained absent from Berlin, decamping to Weimar where he had a number of speaking engagements before the upcoming Thuringian local elections. Sefton Delmer visited him in his home away from home, the Hotel Elephant on Weimar’s central market square, on 27 November, and Hitler appeared confident that the great day was at hand for the National Socialist movement, and that it would triumph in four months at the latest. After the interview Delmer asked him whether he aimed to restore the Hohenzollern monarchy once he assumed power. Hitler answered that he had no intention of being “a racehorse for an imperial jockey who wants to jump on my back precisely at the moment when I cross the finishin
g line.”245 On 30 November, Hitler refused an invitation from Meissner to come to Berlin for another meeting with the Reich president. His tone was cordial, but his message was clear: as long as neither side had changed its position, there was no point in further talks. Hitler could not allow public hopes to be raised, he wrote, “which would inevitably lead to disappointment when they went unfulfilled.”246 The trauma of 13 August was still fresh.

  By the time Hindenburg invited Papen and Schleicher to a meeting in the late afternoon of 1 December, it was clear that a decision on the chancellor question would have to be made. Schleicher reported on the lack of progress he had made with his negotiations but advocated “waiting to see how the Nazi camp would develop.” He also revealed for the first time how, in his mind, a cabinet led by him might be able to find a way out of the crisis. Schleicher’s idea was to get some National Socialists, under the leadership of Gregor Strasser, to join the cabinet, thereby dividing the NSDAP and establishing a “vertical front” from the trade unions through the bourgeois parties to dissident Nazis that would be willing to support measures necessary to stimulate the economy and lower unemployment. Hindenburg found that the prospects of success for this endeavour were too uncertain. He refused to accept further delay and asked Papen to continue heading the government. Papen agreed under the condition that “he would be given all the authority of the presidency in the conflict with the Reichstag that was sure to come.” Hindenburg agreed, saying that it was a matter of “preserving Germany from the damage that would result from a violation of the duties of the Reichstag.”247 In other words, Hindenburg had decided upon a “battle cabinet” that would institute the emergency plans drawn up in August and September and dissolve the Reichstag, postpone new elections indefinitely and force through changes to the constitution that would divorce the government from the parliament. Schleicher made no secret of the fact that he could not support this decision because openly violating the constitution would lead to a de facto civil war. “You have a difficult road ahead, little monk,” he threatened Papen when the meeting broke up.248